Japan’s LNG imports in February drop

Japan’s imports of liquefied natural gas reached 7.43 million mt in February, down 3.8 percent as compared to the same month in 2015.

The world’s largest buyer of chilled gas paid 355,032 million yen (US$3.15 billion) for imports in January, down 43.5 percent as compared to last year, preliminary data from Japan’s Ministry of Finance showed on Thursday.

Image: Japan's Futtsu LNG terminal

Japan imported 85.05 million mt of LNG in 2015, a drop of 3.9 percent as compared to the year before. This was the first drop in Japan’s annual LNG imports since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 which caused Japan to shut down its nuclear industry.

Power utilitiesLNG use by Japan’s ten independent regional electric power companies dropped 8.9 percent in February to 4.41 million mt.According to the data from the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC), February purchases by the ten utilities were at 4.67 million mt of LNG, down 6.7 percent from 2015.

Total electricity generated and purchased across the ten companies in February declined by 0.6 percent to 75.73 billion kWh, due to decreased heating demands caused by relatively higher temperatures in February than the previous year, FEPC said.